The Government Lifted Its Ban on Creating Deadly Super Viruses
A few months ago, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lifted a three-year moratorium on experiments involving deadly viruses. Prior research in this field has included influenza, SARS, and MERS – three highly infectious pathogens many fear could mutate into pandemic super-viruses.
The ban on studying these germs came between 2011 and 2012 when scientists intentionally created a new version of H5N1, or bird flu virus, enabling it to spread between ferrets. This testing raised many eyebrows in the medical community generating concern that a highly contagious virus could have been accidentally created causing a global pandemic.
The lift on the moratorium will still require extensive oversight from government review panels on individual studies, but slip-ups at the Centers for Disease Control in the past have left some worrying whether the ban’s lift is a good idea.
In 2014, the CDC accidentally exposed dozens of workers to anthrax and mailed a deadly sample of bird flu to a lab that requested an inactive strain. Smallpox samples were also found at the National Institutes of Health that had been stored in a freezer and forgotten for half a century.
Proponents of the relax on the ban think it will help scientists discover ways to prevent the outbreak of future pandemics, but no previous research has led to any viable solutions.
The research has, however, worked to create something called a gain-of-function mutation that creates viruses with the ability to spread easier. In order to study highly contagious pathogens, they must create infectious pathogens; an incredibly risky experiment with no guaranteed return.
Aside from the prospect of an artificial super-virus leaking from a lab and infecting the masses, there’s always the possibility of a virus falling into the wrong hands and being weaponized by bio-terrorists.
Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Control, is concerned with maintaining security around the discovery of information surrounding artificial super-viruses. Osterholm said that if a study found ways to genetically modify Ebola as an airborne pathogen, he wouldn’t want the public to have access to that information.
Is it really necessary to lift a ban on this field of study, when it hasn’t produced significant findings in the past?
Scientists currently supporting the green-light on gain-of-function studies say concerns are blown out of proportion, and that the combination of safety measures and scientists’ will of self-preservation are strong enough to prevent an outbreak. But does its clumsy precedent really support this?
About the Author
The Reporter Who May Have Learned the Truth Behind JFK's Assassination
Few historical events have sparked as many conspiracy theories as the JFK assassination, but when one looks at the evidence regarding the Kennedys’ history with the country’s organized crime families, it’s hard not to see the mob’s culpability. At least that’s what best-selling author, researcher, and former criminal defense attorney Mark Shaw has detailed over the course of several books, including his most recent titled, “The Reporter Who Knew Too Much.”
The reporter Shaw is referring to is Dorothy Kilgallen, arguably the most famous female journalist of her era, known for a syndicated column in the New York Journal-American, a nationally broadcast CBS radio show listened to by millions, and her role as star panelist of the celebrity game show “What’s My Line?”
Kilgallen met an untimely death in 1965 while investigating a strong suspicion that members of the New Orleans mafia may have been behind JFK’s assassination. Fanning the flames of conspiracy further, Kilgallen’s reported cause of death — acute ethanol and barbiturate intoxication — was uncannily similar to that of Marilyn Monroe, whose alleged suicide has been questioned interminably.
According to Shaw’s research, Kilgallen was one of few people who connected Jack Ruby — the Dallas nightclub owner who murdered Lee Harvey Oswald — to Carlos Marcello, the “Godfather” of the New Orleans mafia. Knowing the Kennedy family’s complicated ties to various mob syndicates, Oswald’s history of living in New Orleans, and Ruby’s affiliations with the mob, Kilgallen followed her instinct. She also happened to be the sole reporter to interview Ruby at his trial, out of hundreds who were present.
In 1965, Kilgallen embarked on an investigative trip to Louisiana to test her hypothesis, bringing only a hairstylist along with her. However, she quickly told him to return to New York and not mention to anyone she was down there. Shaw says he believes she uncovered some damning evidence implicating Marcello’s involvement in the Kennedy assassination, which she quickly realized could cost her her life. Kilgallen returned to New York and planned a return trip to New Orleans to meet a confidential informant, but was found dead just weeks before she was supposed to leave. She described her plans to meet the informant on her second trip as “cloak and daggerish.”Â
The idea that the mafia was behind Kennedy’s assassination isn’t a new one. It was well known that the family’s patriarch, Joe P. Kennedy Sr. had a convoluted history with a number of well-known figures in organized crime. Kennedy Sr.’s business dealings in Chicago led to his acquaintance with famous mob boss Frank Costello, who claimed the two were involved in bootlegging operations during prohibition. Though Kennedy Sr. denied this connection, he continued to build his vast fortune through exclusive distribution rights for world-renowned brands of scotch and other imported liquors when prohibition ended.Â
